Cuckoo paper wasp

The name cuckoo paper wasp refers to a monophyletic species group of brood-parasitic paper wasps in the genus Polistes. This species group contains only three species; Polistes atrimandibularis, P. semenowi, and P. sulcifer,[1] all of them obligate social parasites on other Polistes species.

These three species, all occurring in Europe, were originally classified as the subgenus Sulcopolistes by Blüthgen in 1938, but such a group would render the subgenus Polistes paraphyletic, and is therefore no longer formally recognized.[1][2] Research using mitochondrial rRNA supports the view that these three species descended from a common ancestor, and suggests that they are more closely related to Polistes nimpha and Polistes dominula (the latter being host to all three cuckoos) than to Polistes gallicus or Polistes biglumis.,[3] thus constituting an example of Emery's rule.

References
  1. Carpenter, James M. "Phylogeny and Biogeography of Polistes." Natural History and Evolution of Paper-wasps. Ed. Stefano Turillazzi and Mary Jane. West-Eberhard. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. 18-57. Print.
  2. Choudary M, Strassmann JE, Queller DC, Turillazzi S, Cervo R. (1994). “Social parasites in polistine wasps are monophyletic: implications for sympatric speciation”. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, Biological Sciences 257 (1348): 31–35. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1994.0090
  3. Cervo, R. (2006). Polistes wasps and their social parasites: an overview. Ann. Zool. Fennici, 43, 531-549.
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